Our campaign to defend our services and the NHS

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‘Waltham Forest – Save Our NHS’ aims to support the NHS in Waltham Forest to continue as a not-for-profit service, providing best quality healthcare, free to all users at the point of delivery, and funded through taxation. We raise public awareness of any local or national changes to the NHS and challenge any service changes or cuts that threaten the quality of healthcare in Waltham Forest.

We are currently very busy campaigning against the Sustainability and Transformation Plans (STPs). As you may know, our local NHS services in North East London are at risk of massive reorganisation and funding and service cuts through the Transforming Services Together (TST) proposals, which are in turn part of an umbrella STP for the whole of North East London. Our local STP and TST are just 1 instance of the 44 STP health areas across England. This national programme is being conducted largely in secrecy with no meaningful consultation with the public or NHS staff; it could result in £22 billion of cuts, reconfigurations, fragmentation and privatisation of NHS care .

Get involved: we are not currently regularly updating this website, but please follow our Facebook page and contact us at wawfsaveournhs@gmail.com for more information about the group, to get added to our email list or to find out the date of our next meeting. Meetings of the group normally take place monthly at 7.30 on Monday evenings at Ye Olde Rose & Crown, 55 Hoe Street, Walthamstow, London E17 4SA and are open to all residents of Waltham Forest who support the aims of the group.

As you may know, our local NHS services in North East London are at risk of massive reorganisation and funding and service cuts through the Transforming Services Together (TST) proposals, which are in turn part of an umbrella Sustainability and Transformation Plan (STP) for the whole of North East London.

Our local STP and TST are just 1 instance of the 44 STP health areas (footprints) across England.

This national programme is being conducted largely in secrecy with no meaningful consultation with the public or NHS staff; it could result in £22 billion of cuts, reconfigurations, fragmentation and privatisation of NHS care .

Please sign the petition below and share as widely as you can with family, friends and neighbours. We need a massive national response to scrap these plans.

petition.parliament.uk
The UK spends less on health as a share of its GDP than most other G7 countries. Our NHS is under pressure as never before and is in danger of failure. The NHS is effectively only getting an increase of 0.95% per year. The STP programme will close A&E’s and essential services across the country.

The government is making health organisations across England implement 5 year plans to cut debts and budgets and to shift care from hospitals to the community. The plan for Waltham Forest includes cutting emergency surgery at Whipps Cross at night and instead taking patients to the Royal London hospital in Whitechapel. This will directly threaten A&E and Maternity at Whipps Cross Hospital.

Down-load the attached leaflet for more information and write to your MP Stella Creasy (Walthamstow), Iain Duncan Smith (Chingford and Woodford Green) or John Cryer (Leyton and Wansted), to ask what they are doing to ensure we don’t loose our A&E and Maternity Services at Whipps Cross Hospital. You can use this sample Letter to MPs 2016

Bring Back our NHS in England- Support the National Health Service Bill​

On Friday 11 March, the National Health Service Bill 2015-16 will have its second reading in Parliament, tabled by Green MP, Caroline Lucas. It currently has the support of 76 MPs including Lucas, Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell.

Brief summary of the NHS Bill

In short, the Bill proposes to fully restore the NHS as an accountable public service by reversing 25 years of marketization in the NHS, by abolishing the purchaser-provider split, ending contracting and re-establishing public bodies and public services accountable to local communities.

This is necessary to stop the dismantling of the NHS under the Health and Social Care Act 2012. It is driven by the needs of local communities. Scotland and Wales have already reversed marketization and restored their NHS without massive upheaval. England can too.

If you have a Labour MP, please ask them to state their support for the Bill. While Jeremy Corbyn sponsored the Bill, this was prior to his election as party leader. Therefore there is a possibility, but by no means a certainty, that the Labour Party could start to back the principles of the Bill

JUNIOR DOCTORS PROTEST NO 3
SATURDAY 06 FEBRUARY 12 Noon
Waterloo PlaceSW1https://www.facebook.com/events/1738871523011454
STUDENT NURSES BURSARY OR BUST CAMPAIGN
“WALK OUT WEDNESDAY” 10 FEBRUARY 10-11am
Following the fantastic demonstration of NHS students on 09 January against the threat to remove NHS student bursaries, student nurses are planning a week of action including a walkout between 10 and 11am on 10 February to coincide with the possible doctors’ strikehttps://www.facebook.com/events/1539284669715402

Despite re-entering talks in good faith, the government have failed to provide junior doctors with reassurances on key areas around contractual safeguards and anti-social hours. Junior Doctors have therefore been forced to call further strike action to stop a new contract being imposed which would be bad for doctors, patients and the NHS.
The contract changes to unsocial hours payments will result in Doctors facing pay cuts.
But this dispute is about more than pay
The removal of safeguards on hours risks exposing patients to doctors working dangerously long hours. Unsafe working practices risk patients’ lives.
If they get away with this the Tories will impose new contracts on all NHS staff.
The government has widened the assault on the NHS, threatening to cut bursaries for student nurses and other health care students. From 2017 courses will be fee paying meaning over £50,000 debts for a three year degree: students will be paying to work ! These attacks on pay and conditions pave the way for more privatisation. We need to support the junior doctors and health care studentss to defend our NHS

Come to the meeting and share this message widely. Please use the attached poster on your noticeboard at work or in your local shop or Cafe. j.doctors_flyer (3)

Junior Doctors at Whipps Cross went on strike for 24 hours on Tuesday January 12.
They maintained a lively picket throughout the day, supported by other health workers, local unions and members of the public.

They were surprised by the level of public support, with constant beeping from passing traffic and a stream of donations of food and drinks. We were there with our banner and are committed to support them for as long as it takes.

13 health campaigners attended Barts NHS Trust Board meeting on 4th November, held in the Council Chambers in Walthamstow Town Hall. A petition was handed to the Board, signed by 1543 local people, calling on the Board and NHS England to make immediate, publicly transparent plans, to end Barts Health PFI contracts.

Dr Coral Jones, a retired GP from Hackney, presented the petition. Dr Jones said that even if the Board did not agree that PFIs are morally wrong, they evidently agree with campaigners that repaying the charges are unsustainable. Dr Jones pointed out that the Board’s risk register states : “PFI inflationary cost pressures introduce an increasing level of challenge to delivering long term financial sustainability” Dr Jones said that in 10 years time, the charge for the Royal London/Barts PFI will increase from £131m to £165m per annum, and that the Board owes it to residents and staff to sort the PFI out now, especially as Barts deficit is rising year on year. The Chair of the Board, John Bacon, said the trust is contractually committed to the PFI but are working on how payments could be managed. ” This is clearly inadequate and we will continue to campaign to cancel this unsustainable debt.